Charlie Stewart | CEO | Rogerwilco | mail me |
Word on the street and in boardrooms across the world is that the Metaverse is the next big thing. The fact that one of the world’s leading tech billionaires has rebranded his leading global social media platform to Meta, leaves little doubt that the Metaverse has arrived in a big way and is making incremental inroads.
However, while tech executives across the globe have been popularising the term for years now, the question on the lips of millions of ordinary people is – what exactly is this virtual world that people are talking about and how can this seemingly incomprehensible world benefit us? How will this universe that has the capacity to mirror our real lives, impact us? And how will it change the way we do business?
Author Neal Stephenson first used the term in his 1992 novel SnowCrash – a story where human avatars and software agents similar to robots, interact in a 3D virtual experience. Since then, the word has been used to describe virtual worlds in the gaming universe, and interactive engagement with AI. What is interesting is that a lab version of the Metaverse has been around now for more than 10 years. Second Life, an immersive online platform that somewhat replicates the physical world, where people can customise avatars that interact with others in spaces designed for all kinds of activities, from lectures to campfire singalongs, has over 64 million active users. For the regulars on Second Life, it’s become part of their everyday reality, while for those of us who don’t seem to have enough time in the day to take care of ‘real life’ it may seem like a right royal waste of time.
So how many faces does this virtual world actually have?
Few, if any of us, really know exactly how it’s going to manifest, but one thing is certain…
The full article is reserved for our subscribers!
Read the full article by Charlie Stewart, CEO, Rogerwilco, as well as a host of other topical management articles written by professionals, consultants and academics in the December/January 2022/3 edition of BusinessBrief.
admin@bbrief.co.za | +27 (0)11 788 0880 |
